https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-04-03/what-it-s-like-living-without-health-insurance-in-americaSarah Yoder and her 8-year-old daughter walked out of their pediatrician’s office in early February before the appointment began. Her family dropped their health insurance plan the month before, and the clinic didn’t offer a discount for paying cash. The checkup would have cost $150.
This is (possibly a big) part of the problem. While we all (around here) know that two people sitting next to each other on a flight might have paid very different prices, often hundreds of dollars apart (if not more), I think we can all agree that while that is forgivable for the airline industry which runs a business, for a necessity such as healthcare it is an outrage that people should be charged vastly different amounts
based on how the provider is paid, with the cash paying customers paying the highest possible price! I have no doubt that insurance reimbursement for such a visit would have been $50 or less (depending on the plan).
Or another quote from the article (same family):
Yoder needed medication herself for a psoriasis outbreak in January. She called several pharmacies to check prices, and a coupon cut the price of the topical steroid Clobex to $125 from $600.
IMHO this should be outlawed! Might do a lot more for healthcare in America than Obamacare ever did.
This system is broken, and Obamacare did absolutely nothing to fix it!
See more about drug prices and gaming the system here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-04-06/when-these-new-pharma-bros-show-up-drug-prices-tend-to-go-monumentally-higher